Has anybody in the homebrew community ever created a "Breakout" version for the NES or does an unlicensed version exist that can be bought or recreated somewhere?I'd like to have one in my list of NES games, but for this kind of game, I'd rather prefer an infinitely looping highscore game like the actual "Breakout"/"Super Breakout" that you can play in between, instead of games like "Arkanoid", "Crackout" or "Alleyway" that have a huge number of levels and a definite ending/winning condition.

There's source, too. Feel free to ask me anything about it if you want to dig into the code.

The only flaw I can think of in my game is how the paddle works... to make it good I would need to change the paddle size but it's too late for that now.

edit: here https://github.com/AleffCorrea/BrickBreakerI see that you want an endless game, the game is set up in a way that makes adding/removing level layouts easy, you could also change the "endgame" state to reset the level # to 1 instead of showing the credits and quitting to the title screen.

_________________This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit.

Last edited by Punch on Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

That said, I'm curious what you're looking for - You want a short game to play "inbetween", but also want it to be infinitely looping? Arkanoid has an ending for sure, but it's very long, lasting over an hour, which is longer than most people would normally be able to play any looping game. It has a built in level select, and many of the earlier levels can be skipped with some button combination, allowing you to play the game however you want. Getting a high score in it is not that easy, especially when you don't have a spinner to control it. In general, you'd be really hard pressed to ever find a better Breakout implementation than Arkanoid.

So if the Arkanoid model isn't what you want, how would your ideal Breakout game work? Should it have a randomization element to the levels, or should it just literally be the same concept with a set of predesigned stages that just loop from the beginning with some modifier to the difficulty (such as ball speed) whenever you beat them? Should the game have gimmicks such as boss fights, or are you looking for a pure zen block breaking experience?

That said, I'm curious what you're looking for - You want a short game to play "inbetween", but also want it to be infinitely looping?

Yes. Like "Tetris": The game simply gets harder and harder. But since it has no end, there's no goal that you have to reach.

In "Arkanoid", losing means failure. So, playing the game is actually a "mission": If I make it, I have won, otherwise I have lost.

But an infinitely looping game with maybe five different levels that simply gets harder and harder: You will eventually lose anyway, so there's no mission to complete. You just play as long until you've lost.

Bosses and all that stuff are not really necessary, but I probably wouldn't mind them.

Randomized levels would be fine as well, but predefined would also be alright.

If such a game exists, I would have to see it and then I would decide for myself whether it's for me. If I don't find a suitable one, I would either live without it or maybe eventually create one myself.

I never really found out: How does the real arcade "Breakout"/"Super Breakout" work in terms of levels? Do they loop? Do they increase in speed?

I never played the original arcade game, but as with every arcade game at the time, I'm pretty sure it's an infinite game that just gets harder.

Tetris works as a "forever" game because its randomization element forces you to constantly adapt to what it throws at you (though essentially NES Tetris will always end at level 29, and there's an actually achievable max score), so for a good endless experience in a Breakout game, I'd think you need something similar to keep it fresh. If you can simply learn the 5 repeating stages, it very easily ends up being just a test of endurance.

In general I think it's hard to design a "good" Breakout game. What makes the gameplay in a game like this genuinely good, as opposed to simply a casual pastime? Personally I like having more of an influence over the angle of the ball (typically: where does the ball hit the paddle, but some games allow you to jerk it upwards similar to a pinball flipper), meanwhile Taito kept things fresh in Arkanoid by adding moving enemies and all sorts of crazy powerups - but those definitely work better with the game being a long sequence of predesigned stages.Also, how to you measure score in a fair and fun way? I'd say keep some kind of score multiplier based on how long the stage has gone on for, and give the player a method of forcing the stage to play out faster for a simple risk vs. reward element. But there are probably better ideas that I haven't thought of.

so for a good endless experience in a Breakout game, I'd think you need something similar to keep it fresh.

To be honest, I didn't really think about the details until now. My original question was just a shot in the dark.Randomized patterns might work, so that the game infinitely throws new levels at you. Maybe with the ability to enter the randomizer seed as a password, so that two people can play the same collection of levels to see who is better.Then there can be stuff like scrolling patterns (like in "Alleyway") or, yes, random obstacles/opponents are fine, I guess.

Sumez wrote:

Personally I like having more of an influence over the angle of the ball (typically: where does the ball hit the paddle, but some games allow you to jerk it upwards similar to a pinball flipper)

I personally would prefer the classic paddle and physics. No fancy stuff that you can do with the paddle.

I just had a funny Idea of a 2 player game. Player one is playing tetris, and trying to drop blocks down and make a row. Player 2 is playing Breakout, and trying to bust Player 1's blocks.

The original grandiose idea for my game was a 1 vs 1 pong match with each half of the playfield customizable with different types of tiles, mostly bricks. It's a good thing that I rushed out my game's release, I don't think it would've worked now that I look back at the development/design process.

_________________This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit.

Who is online

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum